U.S. Senator Chris
Murphy, looking for all the world like a poker player holding four aces, leaned
in as he put his question to Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s choice to
head the U.S. Department of Education. Did she believe guns belonged in or around
schools?
Mr. Murphy and his
counterpart in the Senate, Dick Blumenthal, are both anti-gun veterans of the
Sandy Hook slaughter, though one suspects that even before a gunman entered the
school, both were afflicted with a mild case of “hoplophobia,” a political
neologism coined in 1936 by military officer Jeff
Cooper to indicate “an irrational aversion to weapons" and
also “the fear of firearms and armed citizens.”
Ms. DeVos, whose
appointment is opposed by most Democrats tied to the apron strings of powerful
teachers unions, replied, “I think that’s best left to the locales and states.”
And indeed most decisions bearing on education are still left to municipalities
and states, even though the federal government is able to bend states to its
will by withholding education funding.
Following the mass
murder of 20 students and 6 faculty members at Sandy Hook elementary school in
Newtown a little more than five years earlier, the old school was raised and a
new school rose like a phoenix from the ashes on the same spot. The architects
of the new school furnished it with features that would make a similar murderous intrusion less possible. Almost immediately following the slaughter of the innocents by a
21 year old socially maladjusted man, a wide-ranging debate on guns and schools ensued. Five days after the mass shooting,
President Obama announced that gun control would be a "central issue"
during his second term in office. A year later, Mr. Obama issued 23 executive
orders and proposed 12 congressional actions regarding gun control,
including universal background checks on firearms purchases, an assault weapons
ban, and limiting magazine capacity to 10 cartridges.
Gun control measures
having been swiftly adopted in Connecticut, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Blumenthal tried
their best to encourage the nation to adopt the Connecticut gun-control
template. Some states and municipalities – Chicago, the murder capital of the
nation, comes to mind – have on their books laws and regulations more
restrictive than Connecticut laws adopted after the massacre in Newtown. The
two Connecticut senators met a stiff resistance from legislators who thought,
as does Ms. DeVos, that educational decisions should be made at the local
level, as indeed had been the case in Connecticut. The critics also pointed out
that the laws championed by Mr. Murphy and Mr. Blumenthal would have little or
no effect on murders in cities, largely the result of gang activity and drug
operations. Thugs in cities like Chicago and elsewhere, untouched by gun
regulations, obtain their weapons illicitly, rendering them beyond the reach of
laws that yet manage to criminalize previous licit behavior on the part of law abiding citizens who own guns.
The broad question
put by Mr. Murphy to Ms. DeVos is easily answered. A school, municipality or
state that does decide to post armed guards on the premises to thwart attacks
such as occurred at Sandy Hook will have decided that guns do belong in and around schools. The
right question to ask in these circumstances is: Who should decide how best to
protect schools from attack? Should such decisions be made by the people of
Sandy Hook and Connecticut’s political representatives, or should such
decisions have been made for them by the now departed Barack Obama administration?
Mr. Blumenthal and
Mr. Murphy, whose tender nerves are easily aroused by gun crimes, could not
have helped but notice that, on leaving office, Mr. Obama, who previously had
thought to end the mayhem in cities by issuing executive orders, stuck his
thumb in the eyes of legislators such as Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Murphy who
write laws transporting into jail those who use guns in the commission of their crimes.
For the benefit of
legislators who hope to reduce gun violence in cities, Bearing Arms, a publication
possibly not consulted by Mr. Blumenthal or Mr. Murphy, noted, following the
pardons and commutations issued by Mr. Obama, this nerve shattering statistic:
“Among the 153 commutations issued, 39 (including 10 with life
sentences) were imprisoned for charges including firearms
violations. Among the 53 pardons issued, 4 individuals were serving time
for firearms violations.”
Thoughtfully, BearingArms provided a partial list of the criminal records of convicted felons who have been pardoned or whose sentences
have been commuted by the solicitous Mr. Obama. One felon’s record is typical
of many: “Peter Christian Boulette – 1. Possession with intent to
distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine; possession with intent to
distribute a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine (two counts);
possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime (two
counts); felon in possession of a firearm 2. Possession of a firearm by a
convicted person; possession of an unregistered firearm Sentence 1: 600 months’
imprisonment; 10 years’ supervised release (March 13, 2007) Sentence
2: 87 months’ imprisonment (concurrent); three years’ supervised release
(March 3, 2008) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to a term of 300
months’ imprisonment.”
Ms. DeVos was not
asked by Mr. Murphy what effect such arbitrary pardons and commutations might
have on the urban vipers who prowl the cities and turn their illegally acquired
weapons on innocent children, such as the 10 year-old girl shot in Hartford in November by a thug who doubtless acquired his weapon illegally, winking, as
is usually the case, at laws passed by solicitous legislators and overturned by
departing presidents.
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